(132f) Study of Influences of Distributor Design and Catalyst Block Configuration on Liquidmixing in Multiphase Monolithic Reactor

Multiphase monolithic reactors (MMRs) as novel reactors for process intensification offer superior advantages including low pressure drop, high geometric surface area, good mass transfer, and easy scale-up, compared with the traditional multiphase reactors such as trickle beds and slurry bubble columns. MMRs are promising catalyst packings suitable for catalytic gas-liquid-solid reactions encountered extensively in chemical, petrochemical, biochemical, and environmental processes. Liquid mixing characteristics are important to reactor performance.

In this research, the “tracer-response” c-t data in a MMR with 400 cpsi at different gas-liquid flow was detected using conductivity probe technology. The influences of distributor design （nozzle and glass bead distributor as liquid distributor）and catalyst block configuration (integral and segmented monolith bed) on liquid mixing in the MMR were studied in water-air system. The average residence time and the degree of axial dispersion in the monolith reactor at different gas-liquid flow were detected simultaneously. Results showed that the average residence time decreased with an increase of liquid flow, an increase of gas flow as well, the liquid flow was the main factor affecting the average residence time; the degree of axial dispersion with nozzle as liquid distributor in both integral and segmented monolith bed is less than that with glass bead distributor; the degree of axial dispersion in integral monolith bed is larger than that in segmented monolith bed, so segmented configuration can reduce the axial dispersion in MMR.